Looking for Opinions - Player quality in Fictional League

[Cadieux39]

Hey everyone, would love to hear some opinions and comments in regards to a question i have.

Im playing a fictional league, started in 1946, currently 1972. Also to note, my season is only 124 games long.

The question : I'm wondering if i have a lack of skill in my league, or if its actually the opposite and i have too much skill.

Sub Question : Im looking to modify my feeder leagues where i could have one feeder output better quality players than the others.

So here's my league. 20 Professional teams. all with AAA and AA affiliates. I also have a couple independent leagues to scoop up the left over Free Agents. The feeder system to my league looks like this. 24 NCAA (college) 12 CIS (College) and 20 Highschool teams.

Here are my observations:

The Best of the best were from 1946 after 25 years some of the best pitchers, best hitters, best overall players of all time were the young stars from 1946. When it comes to league records, most of them are held by players from that original creation of the league.

The broad way i look at it, is to say that from 1946 to 1951 the top players would have a WAR stat between 8 and 6. There was a few but clear dominant super stars. Now the new normal between 1965 and 1972, the top WAR stats are between 4 and 2. In 1972 one player reached 5.1 which was the highest WAR for a hitter in the last 5 years.

Has the Talent gap disappeared? Im wondering if the talent curve has levelled off because perhaps there is TOO MUCH talent in my league. WAR means wins above replacement... so perhaps the "replacement" skill level has caught up to the top talent. However what i think is happening is, my game no longer create the superstar players. In 1946 and in the 50's Players would hit 30+ home runs (remember 124 game season) RBI's R and Batting averges were also higher. Now in 1972, 30 HR is rare, the leaders hit 23 Hr. As mentioned most league records are still held by the crop of players from the original creation of my league.

Lets Look At The Draft So with a total of 56 feeder teams i have an abundance of players available each year. Over 600 hundred... for a draft that is 10 rounds which means approx 200 to 215 players are selected. (depending on comp picks) However the breakdown of talent does seem normal. 1st rounders are 90% likely to make the bigs. How ever perhaps 4-5 players from 1st round develop into players with 15 year careers. 2nd round choices are good, likely to make the bigs, occasionally they have lengthy careers... Round 3 4 5 are fringe players, lucky to play 200+ games in majors. Round 6 7 8 these players are career minor leaguers, with spotty shots at majors. then round 9 and 10 are players who fill the minors, many of these players get released within 3 years of being drafted.

The Addition of INT free agents In 1969 i decided to add in Int Free agents to my league. It was at this point i was surprised to see how talented some players were. Japanese, English, Cuban, Dutch stars had shown up. Now these aren't super stars, but to see 2-3 players who are 4star talents pop it made me scratch my head. How does an INT F.A. from England pop in with true stats of 200+ across Speed, Baserunning, Stealing... This player is instantly top 5 in Stolen bases....

Lets Look At the Feeders I decided to count out the future stars from each of my feeder leagues, and this is what i saw. First off lets say my expectations were that NCAA would be the strongest of the feeder, Then perhaps Highschool because it has 20 teams, and CIS which has 12... The results.

CIS, a Feeder system of mostly Canadian, Latin American and European players have the best future prospects in my league. The 12 team league had 8 Elite players with 5 star potential and 8 Great players with 4 star potential. A handful of 3 stars then the rest.

In Second place to my surprise still was Highschool. With 20 teams, mostly American, Puerto Rico, and Canadian players. This league had 9 Ellite 8 great and quite a few good prospect.

Lastly was the NCAA, with 24 teams, and 75% American, with Puerto Ricans, Canadians filling out the ranks, I was confused to see that they only had 4 Elite prospects and 3 Good prospects... My expectations would be for them to have 12+ Elite 12+ Great players with potential.

Here's an interesting note, in 1969 i modified the SPCM ( Sabermetic ) for players in my feeder leagues, wanting NCAA to be better. their Sabermetric is set to 0.8 across the board. The CIS (college) league was set to .65 and the Highschool league was set to 0.5


It is my understanding that based on how this worked. The NCAA should be creating players who are at 80% their full potential, so therefor about 80% ready to be a full fledged Major league players.

Yet somehow the biggest feeder league, with the richest talent pool and the highest SPCM has a quality output half to that of the weaker international mostly CIS.

So if you made it to the end, i would love to hear your opinions, again my questions are:

Are my feeder leagues outputting too much talent, neutralizing the gap between elite players and bench warmers?

and

In my attempt to create a better feeder league, how come the feeder with higher SPCM ( Sabermetric Player Creation Modifier ) is actually outputting less quality players?

Whats a tip for increasing the talent from the feeder pool, or seeing a true super star come from feeder leagues?

Thanks.